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Kedean | 3

There are priests, too, can’t be good…

Kedean wasn’t wholly familiar with the Yaelian class structure or system of government, but he knew enough to understand, particularly in conjunction with Finn’s comment, that their ‘priests’ were of special status and likely only made appearances such as this for critical situations. He knew they were a deeply religious people, and had the sense that they put special importance on protecting their clergy and system of worship. They must have been frightened indeed, if they were sending out representatives of such a sort into the ‘dangerous wilds’ of the mainland. His thoughts were still lingering on this when a new voice popped in.

You're just about the tallest man I've ever seen…

Kedean glanced down. It wasn’t an infrequent observation, and his given company — and the fact that he could see over most every head — leant him to suspect it must have been directed at him. And it did seem to be, as his eyes soon found the speaker staring up at him. A noble girl, he guessed. Or some daughter of a family of high standing. She couldn’t have been that old. Perhaps Finn’s age, and-

Figure that out on your own?

Kedean opted not to comment, giving a soft snort and leaving the two to their own devices initially. At least she seemed capable of fending for herself verbally, and he might have been more defensive of Finn—except that the boy wholly deserved it, after how he had chosen to open conversation, and he had no doubt he was at least as capable of holding his ground without Kedean’s help in a miniature war of words.

To avoid, hopefully, any real malice however, when the opportunity arose, he gave a proper nod of greeting. “Kedean,” he said.

…how do you know each other?

It was a good question. His eyes wandered to the scrappy, skinny boy at his side. Well, he attacked one of my coworkers and burnt a scar in his gut, but because he looked half starved and almost dead I decided to take him home and give him a bath, and I haven’t been able to get rid of him since…

“Finn is…a friend and associate,” he said. They were still within Frehy’s earshot, after all, but if the man had anything to say about their new company, he kept it to himself. “We are working together. He has quite the talent for magic…” His eyes flit to Finn, “…even if his manners could use some refinement.” Then, his focus was on Shavas. “And you? You seem…a bit young to be in this crowd alone.”

While they spoke, there was a stirring at the front as someone came forward, and though it was not why he was here, he couldn’t help but listen and overhear.

Now, however, we know that the Dretch have stopped targeting our people to instead focus solely on the Alkidike races. It is their people that are suffering the most now and they are the ones we must work with in order to stop these vile creatures…

And he frowned, in spite of himself. It wasn’t much his business to begin with. He was not about to be involved. But this felt off. He tended to consider himself relatively lenient and accepting even when it came to interactions with all the races, including the alkidike, though in his opinion they had the most reason to be concerned about the amazon race. This, though, did not seem to compute. The Dretch were focussing solely on the alkidike, so they were going to, what—aid them? Risk their own people to offer help to a group that probably did not want their presence to begin with? This alongside a slew of other thoughts ran amok through his mind, but for now, Kedean held his tongue.

It just wasn’t his business. But he did have difficulty imagining the people of Oba, let alone the people of Yael, would be eager to provide soldiers and lives for an alkidike cause…

Shierra post 3

Shierra took a step back when the woman she spoke to seemed to jump out of her skin. Unsuccessfully trying to stifle a snicker, she grinned and waved her hand. "Sorry. Didn't mean ta startle you." She had gone back to looking around when the woman spoke up again. Sort of? "Prala? I'm Shierra." Pursing her lips, she reached into the bag at her hip and dug around a moment before pulling out a thick ribbon. "Here. Use this to tie your hair back. You look a little miserable with all that hair~"

She looked up quickly at the direct voice reaching over the chatter. Ah, a woman in charge! She listened intently, practically feeling the gravity of the topic in the speaker's voice.

Hearing that the other races were essentially in the clear was a relief, but the attacks were still happening. "Don't care about the Alks," she huffed, "but the Dretch still gotta pay fer what they've been doing to everyone." It didn't matter to her that the targets had changed. The attacks had happened, and they had to reply in some way other than hiding in fear. "What're you thinkin', Prala?" she asked her new companion curiously.

Finnufarinel | 3

"Then why don't you just shut up?" But she didn't, just kept talking, almost as if she'd been born deaf and he was keen to ignore her, until she started asking about his scars. The yaeli's small fingers convulsed around his staff, gnarled nails gripping into the well worn wood while he snarled. There was nothing 'civilized' in the act; all in all it showcased a darker side of Yael, one not as glamorous as was being presented by the priesthood, and one he'd rather keep quiet about.

Just set her hair on fire. One small flame will go unnoticed in all that red and by the time she starts panicking you could already be gone. Finn tapped his fingers along the staff, each teach birthing small little bursts of magic. Each little zap against his skin reminded Finn of what he could do, but Kedean was there and...that alone held him back. Partially.

"You should trade all that gold for a muzzle." The boy groused. A few members of the surrounding crowd were already jittery enough around him, and if he pressed it any further their mark might run off.

....a friend and associate. 'Friend' was spoken freely enough, and looking up at Kedean he knew the reason why it had been said. Frehy was still around, still hovering like a coward would, and for the time being they needed to look closer than they actually were. His eyes flickered to the center, where the leaders were standing, and a part of Finn found himself leaning more for the Priest's words moreso than the others. Old habits were hard to break, and as angry as he was at his homeland it was at least familiar to him.

Now, however, we know that the Dretch have stopped targeting our people to instead focus solely on the Alkidike races. It is their people that are suffering the most now and they are the ones we must work with in order to stop these vile creatures…

"THERE IS NO WAY IN H--- WE SHOULD HELP THEM.." Finn snapped, stamping his staff onto the ground. His chest sucked in air just as fast as it expelled it, and made for a rather vicious scene. If it wasn't for them his entire family would still be alive, and he wouldn't have had to go through half of what he'd scene...."You know what I say? They deserve it! Better that it's going after them than us."

Xenia ll 2

Large, round glasses slipped down Xenia's nose as she canted. Even from this angle it was a struggle to see her parent's through her curls, but if Xenia turned all the way around she couldn't see everyone else too! She knew mama was trying to be quiet, either out of her own fear or a sense of trying not to scare Xenia, but the child knew 'that tone'.

But something everyone else was saying bothered her. A whole bunch of things about 'bugs' and 'bugs going after bugs' and it just made a jumbled up mess in her mind. "I thought we only had bug ladies at home, but there are some here too? And...are they good or bad?" She squirmed her little toes into the dirt, growing more confused by the moment. As young as she was a lot of the topics were sailing over her head, but the overall tension in the group was getting to her.

"Are we going to be okay?"

Shavas || Post 3

Magic, huh?
She cast a doubtful glance at the Yaeli nearby but kept her thoughts to herself. After all, most wouldn't guess that she was more than a pretty face. That suited her, most of the time. She found herself irked that these two seemed so fooled by her appearance, sure, she liked to look nice, she loved pretty clothes, but that didn't mean she was helpless. Just because she didn't stand a thousand feet tall, or have magic didn't mean she was helpless. She decided to let the 'young' comment pass. She most certainly was not too young to be here, she would have normally enjoyed treating Kedean to a blistering lecture on exactly why she had every right to be here, but her crimson eyes were fixed on Finn.

She mulled on his words while the woman spoke to the crowd, but she found she wasn't paying much attention. Clenching her jaw, her heart rate speeding up and her face heating as her irritation built, until she could hide her fury no longer. She stepped closer to the Yaeli so they stood nearly nose to nose. Her eyes were like liquid fire, her demeanor that of a hissing cat, but her voice was almost sweet, "Maybe I will buy a muzzle, Finn. The only problem is, I'm worried they don't carry a size big enough to fit over your BIG. DUMB. MOUTH!!!" Her hands were clenched into fists at her hips and she almost wished he would take a swing at her. Her eyes dared him. Strangely, this was behavior that Shavas' elder brother would have recognized as: 'Shavas-attempting-to-make-friends.'

Zekiel | 3

Zekiel blinked, surprised at the tone of Rainer’s initial outburst. Was he—upset? His eyes squeezed shut, and for an instant, Zekiel almost pulled away, not wanting to offend. But then Rainer’s hand laid briefly over his before withdrawing, his cheeks warming to an unmistakable color, and Zekiel resolved to linger, realizing that instead of him personally it must just be-

I failed.

Ah, yes. Personal embarrassment or shame over something.

I have lost my connection to the Gods…

Oh.

Zekiel shook his head, offering a bit of a smile when Rainer managed to catch his gaze even for a moment. “You have traveled away,” he admitted. “I think that all of those who linger far, long, eventually lose that light…” There was a variety of opinions among the clergy on what exactly that meant, and he supposed he understood Rainer’s anxiety. There certainly were a number who believed it was a withering away of the connection with their gods and some went so far as to think they ought to be cautious around, or even outright ban those who had lost it. But. Even foreigners made their way to their shores, and none of them had that light. It could happen to the best of them. “I have known good, faithful men and women who make that trek to the mainland and give their best efforts, but still lose their glow, and when they return, they are no more cruel or cursed than when they left…it doesn’t cause you pain, does it?”

Even as he asked, his attention shifted subtly when the focus of the crowd moved more towards the center stage, where their leaders were beginning to speak. Personally, Zekiel had come to bring reassurance to his people, to make a presence of himself and the gods and watch the direction of a trial which had plagued their people for some time now—something he had witnessed first hand. As a priest, he had been privy to slightly more information than the general public, but being new to his rank as he was and having moved away from the capitol to attend to his own village, he admittedly was not aware of all the finer details. So far as he knew, this was a gathering simply to publicly inform those who came what had been learned of the threat so far and unify their people should they have the opportunity.

Thus, he didn’t think there would be much new information to his own ears, though he did listen as soon as the leaders began speaking, and when it turned to one of the foreigners — Now, however, we know that the Dretch have stopped targeting our people to instead focus solely on the Alkidike races. It is their people that are suffering the most now and they are the ones we must work with in order to stop these vile creatures… — he felt a strange, cold pull in his gut, and his eyes moved away from Rainer, towards the center stage again.

They are the ones we must work with…

Had they truly been called here to aid the…alkidike?

THERE IS NO WAY IN H--- WE SHOULD HELP THEM! came one shout almost immediately, stirring up from the crowd alongside a clamour of other voices, and his attention flit briefly that way- He blinked. Was that—? The commotion, however, made for a number of moving bodies, and given his own short stature, combined with how small the other was, soon he had disappeared in the crowd, and Zekiel’s mind moved back to the path it had been on.

He did not ‘hate’ the alkidike. He did not hate anyone. But of all possible races, he could not be blind to the fact that these were those who had sent their cruelest and most inhumane to the lands of his people. They had exiled their most vicious and bloodthirsty traitors and dumped them upon their lands, where they had proceeded to kill families, merchants, children, travelers. He had spent years inside the Sanctum’s doors counseling victims, listening as people recounted their horror stories.

And beyond that, he was more convinced by the day that these shadow demons were not the work of his gods. Likely as not, they were the creation of same powers that brought the alkidike women into being, or if not precisely the same, then connected somehow. Regardless, it was a very exterior, foreign affair—and no matter how he thought on it, he could not see how it would benefit their people to mingle in plans of alien gods.

How could anyone ask his people to offer their lives to aid those who had terrorized them, when doing so would only just as likely bring more pain and disruption upon them?

Shesha Post 4

"That seems to be the question of the day." Shifting his weight so that he could lean into the magical staff that he carried he found himself looking from side to side. He could hear some mutterings from the crowd around them and he found himself quite curious. It seemed as though not everyone was pleased about the idea of helping the Alkidike tribe. He knew of them through rumor only so he couldn't say that he exactly cared one way or the other. What he did know was that he didn't like the Dretch because they were dangerous. At the same time if they had stopped taking Earthlings so... what should keep him going forward down the path they were standing upon?

Giving a humming sound he finally said, "I have to question why we care. Helping them isn't going to help me going forward in anyway that I can fathom." Shesha was a selfish person that did things that would help him and his ambitions. Even now he found his mind racing, trying to find a favorable angle in all of this but he was failing to do so thus far. Lifting a hand he set to toying with a lock of his bright red hair and finally said, "I can't think of any reason to risk my own hide for them but maybe those in charge will give us more motivation?" That of monetary or social value would be all that would get him moving.